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Descriptive Essay On A Tornado

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The Tornado

I was playing outside on a hot, late afternoon in August. My mother and grandmother were in the house. My dad was at work. I was five.
In the time it took to bend down, pick up the ball, and stand, the day changed. No birds sang, no insects buzzed, nothing. “There’s no wind,” I said aloud. It seemed as if the earth had sucked in all the air around me. The hair on my arms stood up. The poplar leaves hung still.
I looked around me slowly, as if in a dream. Across Palmer’s fields, where the sun went down, the sky had darkened. I started walking there, towards the west. The tall grass in front of me was still.
I could hear myself breathing. The farmland shimmered in slow-motion stillness. The sky changed colour. Now, it was green.
The screen door slammed. It made a loud crack in the silence. Whirling around, I saw my mother coming onto the front porch. She yelled something. Her hair was blowing. Her apron was blowing against her. “Wind!” I looked back to the west, and there was the storm clawing its way into the sky above me. I stood staring, held by its power. The wind felt wild. It rolled around me. I loved it.
From almost another world, I heard my mother yell, “Tara May Stewart, you get in this house right now!”
I didn’t want to go. I wanted to stay, rooted to this fierce place. The dog came bounding, Get moving, he said, tongue lolling, eyes wide, his body banging against my legs.
My grandmother now stood next to my mother, thin arms waving. Her tiny frame was lashed by her apron strings, her bony knees swaying. The wind pushed me towards them until I had to run or be thrown to the ground. The rain came slashing at my legs, and by the time my feet hit the porch steps, I could hardly keep myself upright.
My mother grasped my arms in fear and anger, pulling me into the house. Once inside, she pushed her whole body against the heavy front door until it finally shut. I heard the lock snap into place against the rain and wind.
“Get downstairs,” she shouted. The door to the root cellar was already open. It leaned against the side of the cellar closet. Grandma climbed down the wooden stairs first, then me. My sister was already down there. My mother came down last, pulling the hinged door over us.

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